Langley Abbey Environment Project: Turning sustainability into profit by generating and selling BNG units

In the UK’s Broads National Park, Norfolk, Langley Abbey Environment Project (LAEP) faces both the challenge and the opportunity of moving from arable farming to conservation.

How is LAEP identifying and navigating opportunities to enhance biodiversity and trade biodiversity net gain (BNG) offsets as an environment bank?

LAEP mapped out a phased approach to return 200 hectares of arable farmland to nature by creating a mosaic of priority habitats, such as wildflower meadows, traditional orchards and ponds and expanding the vast network of hedgerows and watercourses across the estate. They also plan to enhance 40 hectares of wet woodland, reedbeds, and deep peat marshland — some of the world’s most effective carbon stores.

In a recent episode of Sustainability Superheroes, Henry Parkinson, Project Lead at Langley Abbey Environment Project, shared LEAP’s experience and his recommendations with Host Stephen Marland — offering solid advice for developers and landowners as well as environmental consultants and sustainability professionals as they make BNG decisions for their own properties.

Watch a recording of the live event now or read on for 3 key takeaways on the big decisions that you’ll need to make on the way to turning sustainability into profit.

Takeaway 1: Zoom out to get the big picture view of your site’s habitat(s) in relation to surrounding properties.

While improving biodiversity within a site is a valuable move, over the long term it is habitat connectivity that allows myriad species to thrive and support a healthy ecosystem.

“My advice to landowners considering habitat creation would be to zoom out slightly and see what effect your changes would have on the wider landscape,” says LEAP’s Project Lead, Henry Parkinson.

• Would your conservation plan provide connectivity for wildlife species?
• Can you extend existing sites and work with neighbours to achieve something across a larger scale?
• Is your land compromised by other land uses in the vicinity, which might undermine the habitat you create or the species you hope will occupy it?

He recommends looking into data available regarding biodiversity from local planning authorities (LPAs) and specific plan districts (SPDs) as well as Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) to help answer these questions.

Takeaway 2: Determine your best approach — upfront habitat banking, locating a buyer first, engaging a habitat operator.

Langley Abbey Environmental Project took a habitat banking approach, committing to habitat creation up front. They are building a bank of biodiversity units that will be sold to developers later this year.

Pros

• Habitat is created sooner, boosting biodiversity and halting species decline.
• Biodiversity units are sold at full value.
• The process for developers to buy credits is streamlined and credits are available immediately.

Cons

• Capital expenditure is needed for project delivery.
• The process commits the land to BNG for 30 years.
• There is no guarantee of a sale.

A second option would be to ensure you locate a buyer first, prior to habitat creation.

Pros

• Mitigate the risks associated with selling created credits.

Cons

• Legal agreements can take time to set up.
• Once you’ve entered a legal agreement to undertake habitat creation but have not yet started, the time for delivery is set and an annual loss of circa 3% of the value of units is to be expected if delivery activities are undertaken in the next fiscal year.

A third option would be to engage a habitat bank operator. The habitat operator would typically lease your land for 30+ years.

Pros

• The habitat operator takes care of the habitat creation and maintenance work.
• You receive an annual lease payment and management fee.

Cons

• You forgo the BNG unit sales, as these will go to the habitat bank operator.
• Unit sales have the potential to reach much higher annual sums than the annual payments from the operator.

“There’s no right or wrong approach,” Parkinson qualifies, “and much will come down to the landowner’s appetite for risk and ability to market and sell the units generated.”

Takeaway 3: Determine which market you will target — BNG units or carbon credits.

Habitat creation ultimately supports biodiversity and may also reduce carbon emissions. However, you need to choose whether you will target the biodiversity market to sell BNG units or the carbon market to sell carbon credits.

You can sell one or the other, but not both. And, if you are already creating a BNG plan for your development, you cannot offer the habitat creation you do for that plan to a BNG or carbon market.

How do you decide which market to pursue? Consider the local demand for credits and where your land fits in the following parameters to determine whether BNG units or carbon credits will be more successfully created and tallied for sale:

• Location. Are you:
  • In an area of high future housing or commercial development?
  • Opportunity to develop or extend a conservation area?
  • Competing with providers within the same or adjacent NCA?
  • In a region with a lot of heavy industry, which is often carbon intensive? You may have a partnership opportunity with an industrial emitter.
• Land/ecology.
  • Do you have deep peat beneath your land?
  • Do you have woodland which you can enhance or extend?
  • What sort of habitats do you intend to change — are they low value (BNG) and becoming less productive?
• Commercial
  • Is there an opportunity to add additional revenue from an action, such as selling hay from meadows or a fruit crop from planned habitats, for example?
  • Would delivering one habitat over another impact other business operations across the estate? For example, flooding marshland or planting woodland compromises grazing for livestock.
• Amenity
  • Is there a particular habitat which you would like to add or enhance, provided it’s appropriate for the location, soil type, hydrology, etc.? For many landowners this will be their home and surroundings.

There are many ways to develop land for BNG, but it’s clear that location, scale, context, and potential BNG unit value of a site will influence your decisions.

This blog discussed just the “before you start” decisions for turning sustainability into profit by generating and selling BNG units (or carbon credits). To dig deeper into the process and regulatory requirements, catch the video of the live Sustainability Superheroes event here.

Or, to learn more about creating successful BNG applications for your development with AiDASH BNGAI™.